Thursday, January 10, 2013

Back from Limbo!

Yep .. the madcrafter is baaaaack! Hope you miss me ... ;)

I wanted to start the new year with something worth sharing, and I think the following story would fit just nicely.

It all began when I found a stack of old baby wraps in the storage, belonging to Nafisa, my youngest. Now a toddler, she hardly uses these wraps - they're still in good condition and actually were leftovers from others I had donated. Then, the idea hit me ... why not make them into something she could still use at her current age?

Ooookay, so first, I thought about the stuff she loves the most --> soft toys, so one possible 'future' outcome of these wraps could be one of these.

Second, she loves bunnies. Aside from our real bunny 'Olaf' that she adores so much, she has this tiny, rather lumpy 18 cm bunny softy that big sister Zadia gave her (it was Zadia's many years ago). And here she is ..

I thought it would be great if I could make her a bigger huggable bunny to play/sleep with from the old wrap, as it is very soft and nice to the touch. Perfect!

So I scoured the internet to look for a cute, whimsical bunny pattern on the internet and voila! Found it! Check it out: a Modern Folksy Bunny by Gingercake at Fairy Tale Frocks and Lollipops!

Isn't she a cutie? And the best thing was, the e-pattern was 'oh so simple' and ON SALE! Hurrah!

With my (very) limited sewing skills (I have a machine that I hardly touched), I dared myself to make the bunny doll. It was a 'now or never' situation, so with a small prayer I went on and start cutting the old wrap.

And, tadaaaa ... the green bunny from Naf's most favorite wrap (or so I thought)! Not too bad, eh?

[I modified the look a little bit by eliminating the pompom tail (simply because I don't have a thick yarn) and simplify the bow piece. I had this stash of flower embellishments that I bought many months ago that I hadn't use (and now I had an excuse! Yay!) So I sew together a string of velvet pink ribbon and attached the shabby chiffon flower. For the tail I stitched on another part of the wrap which I filled with polyfil / dacron.]

When the bunny was finished, I proudly presented it to Naf, told her I did something to her green wrap as a surprise.

She took one look at it and said, 'No, Mom .. not green .. PURPLE ...!' And then she left me, unimpressed, totting her little old bunny with her.

DANG. Completely forgot that her favorite wrap was the purple one, NOT green! Arrghhh ... felt like my heart just got torpedoed and started to sink. [Blup blubup blup blup ..]

"Can I have it, Mom?"

Suddenly her big sister Zadia asked me out of the blue.

"Of course!", I nodded (a bit surprised because I didn't think she would want it).

She then happily adopted the green bunny and gave it a loving squeeze - which made Zadia's bigger sister, Dinda, a bit envious ... and wanted another one made for her too! Du'oh!

It was then that I realised, when they were younger, I NEVER had a chance to make anything for my older girls, I spent too much time at the office. Every toys I bought for my girls were all factory made. Now, as a stay at home mom, I have all the time in my hands to remedy all that ... no wonder they were so enthusiastic about the homemade stuffed bunnies!

To make the story short, I gladly repeated everything and made a blue bunny for Dinda, and on this second try, I think my sewing skill is getting better (well, maybe just a tiny bit, heh heh)! Here it is ...

And now my house is full of bunnies - stuffed ones, real ones - hamsters, cats, and of course, kids. Lol!

My slice of heaven .... ;)

Thanks for reading friends, hope your day is as lovely as mine (or even better!)! ^_^